What if, instead of having to live your one life one day at a time, you could sample every life you could possibly have? Would you be happier? Would you find “the one?” The life in which everything fits? Matt Haig‘s million-copy bestseller, The Midnight Library, asks these big questions. And in a multiverse of infinite choice and infinite possibility, I'm just not sure that the answer matters enough.1-Sentence-Summary: The Midnight Library tells the story of Nora, a depressed woman in her 30s, who, on the day she decides to die, finds herself in a library full of lives she could have lived, where she discovers there’s a lot more to life, even her current one, than she had ever imagined. The only question left hanging over all of it is which one she'll finally choose. Enough of a theoretical portion of an infinity that she feels as though she has seen them all by the time we're closing on the final pages. The story, then, forms solely around the lives she passes briefly through, the choices and their consequences. He gives her a tree, and though there are many branches, it is still just a tree. Ultimately, Haig gives Nora (and those of us following along with her) a straightforward path from suicide to closure, from regret to acceptance. And a character who doesn't actively want something - even when it is something so basic as to keep on living - is a hard character to identify with. Or maybe she does, but the arc of the plot hinges on her trying to figure out what exactly it is. what sucks a measure of the color and life from 'The Midnight Library' is that Nora, as a character, doesn't really want anything.īut what sucks a measure of the color and life from The Midnight Library is that Nora, as a character, doesn't really want anything. After meeting another "slider" (as those who can bounce around between multiverse possibilities are called), and discussing the pop-science implications of a multi-dimensional existence, Nora muses on her situation: A simplicity to the narrative that has to be taken as a choice on Haig's part, not an accident. When she finds herself excited again about living, things calm down.Īnd there's a deliberateness to it all. When Nora loses hope, the library starts to collapse. Infinite possibility, sure, but only one shot at each of them. Infinite options, yes, but maybe not an infinite amount of time in which to choose. Elm's job is to present everything to Nora very clearly and to lay out the stakes very directly. The Midnight Library is unusual in that it follows a plot with no twists, no turns that don't feel like a gentle glide. Haig presents all of this as a straight line. 'The Midnight Library' is unusual in that it follows a plot with no twists, no turns that don't feel like a gentle glide.īut here's the problem.
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